Updating the 'progress.vim' syntax file

[Daniel Smith]

Hello,

I am interested in updating the 'progress.vim' syntax file [1] to
support the single-line comment syntax that was introduced in Progress
OpenEdge 11.6. Per CONTRIBUTING.md [2], I attempted to contact the
person listed as the maintainer of that file in the file header, Philip
Uren.

Unfortunately, I received a delivery failure notice stating that the
address does not exist. (I did remove the spam-prevention characters
from the address, per the instructions in the syntax file.)

It may be worth noting that this file hasn't been changed in eight
years, so it's plausible the maintainership information would be out of
date. 'runtime/syntax/progress.vim' does not appear in the MAINTAINERS
file [3] either.

What is the appropriate procedure from here?

Thanks,
Daniel Smith

P.S., apologies if this comes through as a duplicate message. I
originally sent it to <vim...@vim.org> last night; but I could see no
sign of it on the Google Groups page after 12 hours, so I sent this
message to <vim...@googlegroups.com>.


[1]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/master/runtime/syntax/progress.vim
[2]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
[3]: https://github.com/vim/vim/blob/master/.github/MAINTAINERS

[Daniel Smith]

Hello,

I am interested in updating the 'progress.vim' syntax file [1] to
support the single-line comment syntax that was introduced in Progress
OpenEdge 11.6. Per CONTRIBUTING.md [2], I attempted to contact the
person listed as the maintainer of that file in the file header, Philip
Uren.

Unfortunately, I received a delivery failure notice stating that the
address does not exist. (I did remove the spam-prevention characters
from the address, per the instructions in the syntax file.)

It may be worth noting that this file hasn't been changed in eight
years, so it's plausible the maintainership information would be out of
date. 'runtime/syntax/progress.vim' does not appear in the MAINTAINERS
file [3] either.

What is the appropriate procedure from here?

Thanks,
Daniel Smith

[Christian Brabandt]

Hi,
thanks for offering help to improve the progress.vim syntax. Since the
file hasn't been updated since 2012 (according to the header), it's very
plausible, that it is currently unmaintained (and as you said you
couldn't even reach the maintainer). In that case, please go ahead make
your changes and create a PR on the Vim repository with you changes.

Please also add yourself as Maintainer (also in MAINTAINERS) and move
the current Maintainer to Previous Maintainer line.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Christian
--
Confusion will be my epitaph
as I walk a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh
but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying.
-- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King"

[Daniel Smith]

On Sun Jul 21, 2024 at 4:17 AM EDT, Christian Brabandt wrote:
>
> Hi,
> thanks for offering help to improve the progress.vim syntax. Since the
> file hasn't been updated since 2012 (according to the header), it's very
> plausible, that it is currently unmaintained (and as you said you
> couldn't even reach the maintainer). In that case, please go ahead make
> your changes and create a PR on the Vim repository with you changes.

All right, will do.

> Please also add yourself as Maintainer (also in MAINTAINERS) and move
> the current Maintainer to Previous Maintainer line.

I'm fine with becoming the maintainer for the short term, but I only
work with Progress in a limited capacity at my job and we're expecting
to move away from it in a few years. After that happens, I don't
anticipate that I'll have much further involvement in the Progress
ecosystem/community. When the time comes, is there an established
mechanism for explicitly marking the file as up-for-grabs, to streamline
things a bit for the next person to come along?

Thanks,
Daniel Smith

[Christian Brabandt]

That is totally fine. I started marking files that are unmaintained with
the phrase: "This runtime file is looking for a new maintainer".
However, often authors/maintainers don't explicitly give up
maintainership, so I can do this only when I know about it.

Thanks,
Christian
--
Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand.
-- Spinoza